Information for theaters, directors & producers about the That Takes Ovaries play

The below information is also found on this downloadable document called Information for Theaters, Directors, Producers about TTO Play. [Downloadable PDF]

Dear Theaters, Directors and Producers,

We hope you might be interested in our play, That Takes Ovaries: Bold Women, Brazen Acts, by co-playwrights Rivka Solomon and Bobbi Ausubel. Our play comes with a professional letter of recommendation from the highly respected David Wheeler, former Associate Artist at the American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.) in Boston and the director of seventeen past productions there.

Our script is a full-length (90 minute) play adapted from Rivka Solomon’s book of the same name. The book is a Boston Globe bestseller, published by Random House, and now in its 6th print run.

We know there is great interest in our play as it has already been produced (though never a professional or Equity production) on college campuses and in community theaters from Chicago to Washington DC to New York City. It has been successful in both urban settings and in rural, middle America. Examples include: In 2013 the play had a two-night run at a university in Michigan (Grand Valley State University) where 500+ attended; in 2012 Virginia Tech University produced the play; in 2011 there were two staged readings in Los Angeles, one as part of the LA Women’s Theatre Project’s showcase of new works, and the other at Tim Robbins’s Actors’ Gang Theater; in 2010 there was a two-week production in Omaha, Nebraska, which yielded 3 positive reviews.

Internationally, the play was been performed by community theaters and groups in the UK, Canada and Thailand, with excerpts performed in Australia, India, Italy and Latin America. If the title That Takes Ovaries does not translate well abroad, we use Leading a Bold Life.

The script is perfect for celebrity actors and noted community leaders to come in for guest appearances. Also, we allow directors flexibility: They can swap out some stories in the script for true stories they collect from local women, giving the play a local feel that delights audiences. Innovative techniques can be used to bring in audiences; in Boston, MA, a two-week production was co-sponsored by fifteen women’s organizations who invited their members to attend. This translated to 50,000 women getting e-blast (email) announcements about the play, which resulted in sold-out shows.

Additionally, our book and play have spurred a separate yet related women’s empowerment movement that is based on the belief that courage is contagious.   As part of this movement, we have held 800+ That Takes Ovaries “open mike” events around the globe, attended by tens of thousands of people. Excerpts of our play are read at every open mike event. Most events are fundraisers for worthy women’s causes, such as rape crisis centers and women’s shelters.

To give a glimpse of the excitement That Takes Ovaries generates: In 2010 we held open mike events in 17 locations, in 2011 there were 24, in 2012 about a dozen. Over 10 years, hundreds of college women’s groups and national women’s organization in the US have held one. Thus, we have great name recognition with those who have gone to college over the last 10 years.

Visit Thattakesovaries.org for more on our “empowerment movement” and to view our promo video.

Our play and open mike events have generated 500+ newspaper articles in Glamour and Jane magazines, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Detroit Free Press, New York Daily News, the Times of India and many others (media quotes found below).

Our play and open mikes have been tested: they have been offered to, and speak to, women and men from all walks of life – from university students in the U.S. to girls who have been sex trafficked in India, from theater-goers in Chicago to struggling migrant farm workers in California.

Upon your request we can send the script. Meanwhile, here is a one-paragraph description:

The play That Takes Ovaries: Bold Women, Brazen Acts is a dramatic telling of women and girls’ real-life stories about times they were bold, gutsy, brazen, outrageous, audacious and courageous. That Takes Ovaries can be performed with three or more actors. It is packed with multicultural, fun, sassy, often touching true tales of estrogen-powered deeds that range from playful to political, including stories of women fighting for their human rights. It embraces diversity with the voices of every day females from many ages and cultural backgrounds. It includes lighter stories, such as Joani opening the country’s first sex-toy store for women in the 1970s and Alison staging a pee protest to secure wheelchair accessible toilets on campus, to heavier stories such as Ruchira risking her life to help girls trapped as sex slaves in Asia and D.H. Wu, a child, stopping her mother from committing suicide after years of spousal abuse. One woman’s courageous story frames the whole play.

 

Following each performance of the play, directors may hold an open mike. There, women audience members spontaneously share true stories of their bold deeds; guys brag about the ovaries in their lives – their mothers, sisters and daughters. Every storyteller gets a chocolate egg wrapped in gold foil, a Golden Ovary Award, for their courage. Because “courage is contagious” (our tag line), audiences leave transformed, excited and inspired to lead a more bold life, personally and politically.

The audience for the play are those eager for examples of women and girls acting outside the stereotype of passivity and niceness, including women and men of all ages who want to see their sisters, mothers, grandmothers, aunts and friends leading empowered lives; mothers and fathers who care about their daughters growing up self-assured and confident; and girls eager to be a part of a “girl power” movement. In short, this is for everyone interested in challenging a culture still wrought with inequality and double standards. That Takes Ovaries taps into the vibrant mass of women and girls hungry for powerful female role models.

Lastly, we also have a separate script for girls titled That Takes Ovaries: Bold Girls, Brave Acts.

Yours,

Rivka Solomon and Bobbi Ausubel
Playwrights